Captain Eric Neil Fenno 1928-2010

Captain Eric Neil Fenno USN (ret.) passed away on January 12, 2010, after a brief illness. He was 83. Born in Anacortes and raised in Dillingham, Alaska, a town still not reachable by road, he relished telling stories of his youth: riding to school on dog sled, hiking into the bush for a week of trapping (no grownups allowed). Since Dillingham lacked a high school, he returned to Anacortes to continue his education, he graduated from Anacortes (Wash.) High School in 1943 and completed two years at the Univ. of Alaska (Fairbanks) before matriculating at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, from which he graduated in 1949. He met his future wife, Mary Alice McGee, in Baltimore, where she was a nurse at Johns Hopkins. They celebrated their 60th anniversary last June.

He liked to joke about his entrance to Annapolis: he claimed he was 4-F (dentistry wasn't all that advanced in Alaska at the time), but the Navy admitted him anyway, because it had taken him two months to make the journey all the way from Alaska—they couldn't bear to make him go back. His Navy career took him and his family across the country and back several times, from San Diego to Newport, R.I., from Honolulu to Washington, D.C.

During the Korean War, he served on the tanker USS Namakagan and the destroyer USS DeHaven. In 1956, he was an instructor at the Navy ROTC program at Penn State. He next served as commanding officer of the USS Steuben County and then as executive officer of the destroyer USS Watts. When the Naval Destroyer School was established in Newport, R.I., in 1961, Captain Fenno helped draft the curriculum and procedures. He later attended the Naval War College.

In 1964, he reported to Saigon as Plans Officer, and served there for 15 months. He then took command of the USS Southerland, which saw action in the Mekong Delta and the Gulf of Tonkin under him. He later was chief staff officer of Amphibious Squadron Two. In 1969, he became chief of the policy section for Southeast Asia. He took command of the USS Coronado in 1974.

One of his final actions in the Navy was evacuating U.S. citizens from Cyprus in July 1974 when conflict broke out between Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot forces. He retired from the Navy in 1975. While commander of the Southerland, he had the opportunity to sail the destroyer into the Anacortes City Pier while heading to San Francisco for overhaul. The visit prompted a parade down Commercial Ave. and a full weekend of activities, during which nearly 8,000 people toured the ship. "Not often does a commanding officer of a Navy ship get to bring his ship back to the city where he was born," he said to the Anacortes American at the time.

He earned his pilot's license as a young man in Alaska, and flew for Dillingham Air, which was owned by his brother, Dennis Fenno. A fisherman, golfer, and sailor, he often grabbed a daughter or a grandchild to indulge one of his interests.

Following his retirement from the Navy, he and his wife settled in Anacortes, where he served on the Anacortes Planning Commission and on the Board of Directors for the Anacortes Museum. Eric enjoyed collecting material related to his extended family in Anacortes and in Chelan, Wash. His knowledge of Anacortes history was extensive. He was a member of the USS DeHaven Sailors Association.

In 2001, they moved to Panorama City in Lacey to be closer to their daughters. He maintained a keen interest in everything around him, read science magazines avidly and often pronounced current news events "ridiculous." While hospitalized during his final illness, he demanded that he be allowed to sit in a proper chair while he drank coffee and read the newspaper, preferably as soon as it arrived, before dawn.

His wife survives him, as do their five daughters, Patricia Anne Fenno of Olympia, Margaret and Richard Best of Chesapeake, Va., Christine and Chris Fenno of Olympia, Nancy and Tom Boyd of Olympia, and Sarah and Jon Pullen of Los Angeles; grandchildren Eric C. Fenno, Elizabeth Vaughan, Sharon Boone, Nathan Fenno, Katie Boyd, Jack Boyd, Hailey Pullen, and Jackson Pullen; great-grandchildren Samantha,, Matthew, and Abigail Vaughan; close family friend Lien Anderson and her family of Burbank, CA; cousins Donna Rawhouser and Alice Haight, both of Anacortes; and many cousins, nieces, and nephews in Anacortes, Chelan, Anchorage, and Fairbanks, among others. His parents, Eric D. Fenno and Elsie Woodburn Fenno; and brothers, Garry Fenno and Dennis Fenno; and his sister, Gloria Thiele, preceded him in death.